How I Got Started Curling

I actually knew nothing about curling until about 10 years ago, even though my mother's side of the family is Canadian and from one of the major curling provinces (Saskatchewan). My mum knew about the sport, but they were just more into hockey. So it was completely random when I was flipping through channels on a Saturday afternoon, and happened to see curling and decided to check it out. It was the Canadian Junior Nationals, and it was a lot more interesting than I was expecting. That day was the women's final, and I watched the men's final the next day.

After that I looked through the CBC listings to see if anything else was coming up (in Seattle our cable picks up the major Canadian network), and sure enough the Tournament of Hearts (Women's National), and Brier (Men's National) were coming up. For a few years, I just watched these major tournaments as they came up, but didn't do anything else. I looked up curling in the Seattle area, and found out we had a club, but didn't call them or drop by.

It was a happy coincidence that the dance company I was in at the time, Enertia, rehearsed about two blocks away from the curling club. Traffic from Microsoft to rehearsal was typically really bad, and so I usually allowed for over an hour to get there. One day, the traffic was completely clear, and I arrived in about 20 minutes. Having an hour to kill, I decided to check out the curling club. That weekend they were having an open house, and so Audra and I planned to try it out.

The open house went really well. They basically put you in groups of around 8, and take you onto the ice with an instructor. You go through a few drills, and then start throwing rocks. After everyone feels pretty comfortable, you play a few ends to get a feel for what a game is like. We both had a great time and signed up for a league right away. I was drawn in by throwing rocks, but there are many other aspects of the game that have kept me going.

If you're interested and in the Seattle area, visit Granite Curling Club. If you're not in Seattle, the USCA keeps a list of clubs in the US. If you're in Canada, just walk down the street, and you'll eventually find one!